1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an agent for treating or preventing hepatic disease, and more specifically to an agent for improving hepatic cancer prognosis, having menatetrenone as an active ingredient thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known that there is a high rate of portal venous invasion (hereinafter referred to as ‘PVI’) among hepatocellular carcinoma (hereinafter referred to as ‘HCC’) patients, and once PVI has occurred the prognosis is very poor. It is known that a high des-γ-carboxy prothrombin (hereinafter referred to as ‘DCP’) level in HCC patients is closely linked to subsequent development of PVI (see Koike Y., Cancer 2001, 91:561-9). DCP is also called PIVKA-II (protein induced by vitamin K absence or antagonist II). DCP is a prothrombin that does not have normal coagulation activity, and is known to increase in level in the case of vitamin K (hereinafter referred to as ‘VK’) deficiency; DCP is thus a protein that is used as a marker for VK deficiency or impaired VK absorption.
Moreover, it has been reported that if VK is administered to HCC patients with a high DCP level, then the serum DCP level drops (see Cancer 1992, 69:31-8), and that upon administering vitamin K-II (hereinafter referred to as ‘VK-II’) to a DCP-producing HCC cell line in vitro, cell proliferation is inhibited (see Hepatology 1995, 22:876-82).
However, until now no clinical data had been collected with regard to it being possible, by administering VK-II to patients after HCC treatment, to inhibit the occurrence of PVI, and to inhibit the recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma, thus improving the prognosis.
In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide an excellent agent for treating or preventing hepatic disease.